ExhibitionDarek Pala

I Met a Friend (Darek Pala & Szymon Parafiniak)

The day on the beaches of Miami. The night in jazz clubs. Strong cocktails and a total blast. Darek Pala and Szymon Parafiniak meet at an exhibition at the Café Kulturalna.

Both are from Częstochowa and both are graphic art graduates from Krakow’s ASP. Seemingly this is where the similarities end. Pala is a fanatic of light and color. The world in his paintings is juicy like exotic fruit which he paints so eagerly, saturated with Florida sunshine, full of people immersed in the sky-blue tint of the ocean or a pool. He uses his favorite motifs – simple, single vases, beaches covered with striped towels. The allure of a carefree life, a siesta, sensuality. However, he still searches for new forms, experiments with abstraction, variety, moments of hesitation.

Parafiniak is a musical maniac – present at concerts, a friend of jazz artists. He has gone through periods of fascination from The Doors and punk rock to Miles Davis and Keith Jarrett. Music permeates his art – he designs album covers, posters. It was this fascination that led to the emergence of an idea to create a series of portraits of jazz personalities where he connects cold pop-art with emotional involvement. The explicit lines applied therein express a dynamic nature of these works whose white backgrounds are rather quiet and ascetic.